When the dregs from Hurricane Nate drifted up to my home in Louisville, Ky., my wife and I enjoyed a couple of days of lovely soft rain, happy to have missed the torrential rains experienced by gulf coast states in the Deep South. The welcome rains came after a several-week dry spell that had lawns turning brown […]
My spouse and I watch very little television beyond the news, the arts and collegiate sports. However, we do subscribe to and receive dozens of magazines at our house. They cover a myriad of subjects, like news, politics, women’s issues, health and photography. They are about literacy education, science and exploration, and cultural history, too. We intentionally pile […]
If you want to understand children, spend some time watching them. Through careful observation, we can see what they are “up to.” And when we respond to their initiatives, we engage with them in what they care about, which communicates to them “I care about you.” That message is always a winner. If you watch children, you will […]
In last week’s blog I had mentioned that … …the American Library Association (ALA) and its state and local affiliates are additional places to which to turn for guidance on helping damaged libraries as they struggle back to something near prominence in the role they play in people’s lives. In response, Karen Muller, ALA’s director of library and knowledge […]
When I was first a professor I was in a cubicle in the basement of a 200-year-old building of an even older university. Charming, right? In my second year, the university began to build a new library next door. For weeks there were pulses of concentric waves in my water glass, caused by the pounding of […]
My wife and I read to each other when we take trips in the car. We’ve read all of the Harry Potter books and numerous novels. This last weekend, on a trip to Chicago, we read Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul* by Stuart Brown, M.D. This very readable book […]
To become strong lifelong readers, kids need to read every day. If kids aren’t reading daily, there are three simple things to fix that: Books. Opportunities. Models. Children need books that touch their hearts, because kids eagerly read books they love, with characters or content they can personally relate to. That might sound simple, but […]
Reading. Each week I write for parents, teachers and teacher educators about the very basics of reading. I address the ultimate reason why as a culture we should spend so much time, energy, and money on it. Sadly, the ultimate goal I refer to is rarely uttered in school board meetings. It is seldom discussed by teachers, and […]
I recently read a fitness article that indicated that a few minutes of activity every hour or so for us sedentary desk-bound workers could accumulate into a sizeable boost in personal fitness over time. I submit that the same is true for the value of a few precious moments reading while waiting for the bus, or the dentist, […]
When a book is enthusiastically read, there is a clear flow of information from the author to the eager reader. She gets her own unique kind of delight from the book by making personal sense of the author’s words, text and illustrations, connecting it with what she already knew, understood or experienced. The enjoyment can […]
